COPENHAGEN -- Cycling through the heart of some European cities can be a terrifying experience as you jostle for space with cars, trucks and scooters that whizz by with only inches to spare.

Thankfully for bicycle enthusiasts, a movement is afoot to create more room for cycling in the urban infrastructure.

From London's "cycle superhighways" to popular bike-sharing programs in Paris and Barcelona, growing numbers of European cities are embracing cycling as a safe, clean, healthy, inexpensive and even trendy way to get around town.

Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, and the Danish capital, Copenhagen, are the pioneers of this movement, and serve as role models for other cities considering cycling's potential to reduce congestion and pollution, while contributing to public health.

The trend is catching on also outside Europe, says John Pucher, a professor of urban planning at Rutgers University in New Jersey and co-author of a new book titled "City Cycling." Pucher says urban cycling is on the rise across the industrialized world, though Europe is still ahead of the pack.

"Americans make only 1 percent of their trips by bike compared to 26 percent in the Netherlands, 18 percent in Denmark, and 8 to 10 percent in Belgium, Germany, Sweden, and Finland," Pucher told The Associated Press, citing official statistics.

But you don't need statistics to realize that cycling is in vogue.

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From airbag helmets to e-bikes, here are some the ways the bicycle renaissance has hit the streets of Europe:

Cycle superhighways

They're not anything as spectacular as multiple-lane expressways for cyclists, but city planners believe they're central to the bicycle revolution: They combine bike paths with bike lanes on regular streets to give pedaling commuters a smooth ride from the suburbs to the city center.

London opened four "cycle superhighways" in 2010, which basically amount to a blue lane for cyclists on the edge of city streets. Copenhagen's approach is more ambitious, seeking to keep bicycles and motor vehicles physically separated as much as possible. The Danish capital plans 26 such routes -- the first of which opened this year -- building on bicycle-friendly features that have been in place for years.

Stop lights are adjusted to the rhythm of bicycles, not cars. Intersections have foot rests and hand rails so that cyclists don't need to put their foot down when they stop. The route is lined with air pump stations and trash cans that are tilted for easy access from the saddle.

"A cycle highway is where cyclists get highest priority, with few obstacles and as few stops as possible," said Marie Kaastrup, a Copenhagen city official in charge of bicycle programs.

Bike sharing

Bike sharing, or "city bike," services that offer bicycles for short trips in the downtown area have come a long way since the first large-scale program started in Copenhagen in 1995. That concept was simple: deposit a coin to release a bicycle from any of a number of bike racks across the city -- like unlocking a shopping cart at the supermarket -- and get your coin back when you return the bike (not necessarily to the same rack).

Less than two decades later, scores of bike-sharing programs have been launched in Europe and beyond, though most are not free. The most recent ones are high-tech, with customers using smart cards or even mobile phones to unlock bikes from docking stations. A milestone was reached when Paris introduced its "Velib" program in 2007, showing that bike sharing works also in a major metropolis. With more than 20,000 bikes it's the biggest system in Europe.

London's bike-sharing system has registered more than 17 million bicycle hires since it started two years ago.

"In places where cycling wasn't a big part of transport -- like Paris or London -- it's been a real game-changer. It's normalized cycling," said Julian Ferguson, a spokesman for the European Cyclists' Federation.

U.S. cities including Washington D.C., Minneapolis, San Francisco and Boston now have bike-sharing programs. A system with 10,000 bicycles that was supposed to open in New York this year has been delayed and is expected to launch in 2013. But the fastest growth is happening in Asia where some of the world's biggest bike-sharing programs have been introduced. The Chinese city of Hangzhou has a system with 60,000 bicycles.

Ironically, Copenhagen's pioneering city bike system was scrapped Wednesday after city officials decided to redistribute funds to other cycling initiatives.

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